Quote:
Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski
Ty will response Wednesday with 1500 words, but let me try and explain where i think you guys are diverging.
A reality factor in voting is that it is not a multiple choice order. You have two candidates each having positions on a number of issues. As a voter you have to distill those positions down to a choice. And no one candidate will hit on 100% for you, at least if you are a thinking person- so you have weigh pros and cons.
You use the word "tolerate," which actually makes Ty's point- your economically driven voter will tolerate a pro gay marriage candidate, got it, but "tolerate" means that voter can also live with an anti marriage candidate- it is a secondary issue.
My wife's cousin finally married her long time partner once NJ changed- they had been in a civil union for a decade. Every April she would post on her Facebook about how much more she paid in Fed taxes because she could not marry. She was a have-not in Ty's little scenario. A candidate's position on gay marriage was not secondary or something she would "tolerate," it was primary. hell, it was economic.
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I think you’re speaking to an important but different point: That economic voters may be somewhat nihilist, too transactional. I agree with that.
But as a pure matter of basic business acumen, there is no reason for economic voters to align with the intolerant. Even if you use the tax avoidance argument, the value of creating new industries pays much more in terms of growth (enhanced revenues for all) than short term tax savings.
If we had two parties with identical platforms save gay marriage and pot legalization, an economic voter could not rationally choose the intolerant party. He’d be precluding growth. It would frustrate his reason for voting.